The foundation of Art in Embassies (AIE), a U.S. Department of State program, began with an International Council established by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1953 to exhibit American works of art in U.S. embassies. Building on these efforts and recognizing the importance of art in international cultural outreach, an AIE office was created by the John F. Kennedy administration in 1963. Since then, AIE has grown and continues its mission to promote cultural diplomacy through art by way of artist exchanges and programs exhibiting a diverse group of American artists as well as international artists and artists from the host countries.
The Collection
“The United States and Mexico: A Powerful Past, A Shared Future” exhibition at the ambassador’s residence in Mexico City is a visual narrative that explores the long-standing relationship between the United States and Mexico – a shared history of struggle and hope. Mission Mexico and volunteers worked closely with Art in Embassies, Dr. Gilberto Cárdenas, Colección y Archivo de Fundación Televisa, Colección FEMSA, Mexic-Arte Museum, Talley Dunn Gallery, Galerie Myrtis, and Dr. Isaac Masri to curate an exhibit that represents the fight for civil and human rights, indigenous representation, and visions for the future.
Art in Embassies (AIE) is a U.S. Department of State program that creates vital cross-cultural dialogue and fosters mutual understanding through the visual arts and dynamic artist exchanges. The Museum of Modern Art first initiated exhibitions of contemporary art for U.S. embassy residencies in 1953, and President John F. Kennedy established the program as an official office at the U.S. Department of State in 1963. The program has since grown and engages more than 20,000 international participants – including artists, museums, galleries, universities, and private collectors. AIE continues its mission to advance cultural diplomacy by collaborating with a diverse group of U.S. and international artists to implement artist exchanges and exhibits around the world.
As a collection, these artworks demonstrate a mutual quest for human dignity across two inextricably bound nations. There are pieces dedicated to the diverse indigenous groups living in the United States and Mexico which represent their contributions to the nation’s cultural richness. Complex stone carvings, ceramics, and sculptures to honor gods and leaders represent Mexico’s pre-colonial era. As we transition to the colonial era, the art depicts an era marked by conflict, subordination, and new beginnings. Additionally, there are modern pieces by mestizo and Mexican American artists who were inspired by indigenous and Western art to create hybrid expressions that mirror Mexico and the U.S.’s diverse ethnic makeup.
Aside from selecting art from differing eras, it was important to include work that could speak to the shared history between our two nations. A history that contains both tragedy and hope – with conquest, war, and families separated across borders. For example, the mestizos and indigenous people in both countries who have always struggled for rights, respect, and recognition, along with African Americans and other underrepresented peoples. Or the hundreds of thousands of soldiers with Mexican ancestry who enlisted in the United States military during World War II. We want to pay homage to the political artists on both sides of the border. From the U.S. artists who worked side by side with leaders of the Chicano Movement to promote social justice, to the Taller de Gráfica Popular artists who used their prints to widely circulate revolutionary causes.
For both nations, our futures are inextricably linked and driven by change, the hopes of many generations, and the dreams of our young people. We hope that this exhibit is enjoyed by all who see it. We hope that it inspires emerging and established artists as they continue to honor their communities, families, and traditions with vibrant and exuberant expressions of creativity. May you be challenged to reconsider and rethink conventional artistic boundaries, while you imagine new, sometimes playful, but always culturally conscious and wholly original works.
Ambassador Ken Salazar
Mexico City, Mexico
September 2022
Exhibit Photo Gallery






























Miguel Ángel Alamilla is a Mexican artist who specializes in poetic, non-figurative sculpture, paintings, and drawings. He is of a generation of artists influenced by Mexico’s historical movements, focusing on abstraction and giving viewers the freedom to interpret his work as they see fit.

Angel Cabrales views everything as an artistic resource and utilizes this in all his creation given his extensive experience with a variety of mediums and styles.

Quetzalcóatl, the feathered serpent, first appeared in early Mesoamérica and is often found in Teotihuacan, Tula, and Tenochtitlan.

Rina Lazo, the Guatemalan Mexican painter, got her start in the 1940s as one of Diego Rivera’s assistants.

Delilah Montoya was born in Texas and raised in Nebraska. She relocated to New Mexico for her studies and credits the state’s ancestral roots for nourishing her exploration of her Chicana identity.

Gerardo Murillo was a painter, writer, author, and pioneer of the Mexican movement for artistic nationalism. He changed his name to Dr. Atl (meaning “Doctor Water” in Náhuatl) in 1902 to reinforce his Mexican identity.

Diego Rivera was trained at the National School of Fine Arts in Mexico City. He spent more than a decade in Europe, becoming a leading figure in Paris’s vibrant international community of avant-garde artists.

Born in Barcelona, Vicente Rojo was an important member of the Breakaway Generation which challenged the supremacy of Mexican muralism and became one of the influential abstract artists of the postwar period. He was a painter, graphic designer, sculptor, and publisher whose work explores the modern vision of Mexico.

Jaime Saldívar was a Mexican postwar and contemporary artist who was born in 1926. He traveled through the towns of Mexico (Puebla, Oaxaca, and Veracruz) to observe life and customs: the churches, convents, dishes, and handicrafts.

Family and Dignity – Artists
Francisco Bautista José Luis Cuevas Carlos Francisco Jackson Pedro Linares Carmen Lomas Garza Alan PogueFrancisco Bautista, un maestro tejedor de cuarta generación, nació en el pueblo de Teotitlán del Valle en Oaxaca, México. Aprendiendo a tejer de su padre y abuelo, Bautista comenzó a ayudar a su padre a enrollar sus bobinas cuando tenía aproximadamente siete u ocho años.

José Luis Cuevas fue un pintor, dibujante y escultor mexicano reconocido por sus dibujos neofigurativos a tinta y lápiz y su retrato surrealista. Cuevas fue una parte integral de la Generación de la Ruptura durante la década de 1950, creyendo que el muralismo mexicano era demasiado convencional y parcial hacia el gobierno.

Carlos Jackson nació y creció en Los Ángeles, California. El artista visual y escritor recibió su Licenciatura en Ciencias en Desarrollo Comunitario y Regional y, su Maestría en Bellas Artes en Pintura de la Universidad de California, Davis. Publicó un libro en 2009, Chicana and Chicano Art: ProtestArte, sobre la historia del Movimiento de Arte Chicana/o.

Pedro Linares fue un artista de cartonería (papel maché), mejor conocido por haber creado a los alebrijes, creaturas fantásticas o mitológicas.

Carmen Lomas Garza nació en Kingsville, Texas. A la edad de trece años, se comprometió a seguir una carrera en el arte y aprendió por sí misma elementos del dibujo.

Alan Pogue es un fotógrafo documental galardonado cuyo trabajo se ha centrado en los movimientos sociales y políticos desde Texas hasta el Medio Oriente. El amor de Pogue por la fotografía se desarrolló durante sus años como médico de combate en la Guerra de Vietnam, impulsado por “una necesidad de registrar lo que me impactó, así como lo que era hermoso”.

Alfredo Ramos Martínez spent his formative years immersed in the artistic life of Paris, returning to Mexico in 1910 on the eve of the country’s Mexican Civil War.

Tony Ortega was born in 1958 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He holds a Master of Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Martina Adame was born in the small village of Maxela (a Nahua community in Guerrero, Mexico). Over the past twenty years this community has seen the development of a class of women painters, within the regional movement of ethnic amate painting.

Santa Barraza, a native of Kingsville, Texas, is a contemporary Chicana/Tejana artist. Barraza paints bold representations of Nepantla, a mythic “Land Between.” The term was used by Nahuatl-speaking people of Mexico to describe their situation vis-à-vis the Spanish colonizers.

Malaquías Montoya was born in 1938 in Albuquerque, New Mexico and raised in California’s San Joaquin Valley. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1969 and has lectured and taught at numerous colleges and universities.

Rick Ortega is a Chicano artist born in San Fernando, California. His artwork transcends time and takes us on a mystical journey into an ancient way of life. His paintings disclose indigenous symbols from Mexico’s past, myths, legends, and spiritual beliefs of the Aztecs.

The Migrant Expirience – Artists
Jesús “Cimi” Alvarado Ana Teresa Fernández Malaquías Montoya Tony Ortega Frank RomeroJesús “CIMI” Alvarado is a proud Chicano artist who is driven by contemporary and historic Chicanx figures. He began his artistic career as a graffiti artist in El Paso, Texas and grew to love muralism for its unique ability to speak and create ongoing conversations in public settings.

The Tampico, Mexico native, Ana Teresa Fernández, studied in California and Switzerland, and is known for her ability to make powerful statements.

Malaquías Montoya is an artist, author, and professor. The Albuquerque, New Mexico native was born to migrant parents and was one of seven children raised in California.

Tony Ortega was born in 1958 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He holds a Master of Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Frank Romero grew up in the culturally mixed, middle-class Los Angeles community of Boyle Heights. During the height of the Chicano civil rights movement in the early 1970s, as a member of the Chicano artists’ group “Los Four,” he attained a new, high-profile status in the larger art community.

The Dreamers – Artists
David Alfaro Siqueiros César A. Martínez Maceo Montoya Arely Morales Elsa Muñoz Susana SierraDavid Alfaro Siqueiros was an outspoken Mexican painter and political activist during the first three-quarters of the twentieth century. He focused on important issues in society and took up a written, visual, and verbal “call to arms” for art to be created for and about the indigenous people of Mexico.

As a child of migrants from Nuevo Leon, Mexico, César A. Martínez was the first -American-born member of his family. He was raised in Laredo, Texas and graduated from Texas A&I University in 1968 with a B.S. Degree in All-Level Art Education.

Maceo Montoya was raised in a family of Chicano artists and writers. He is the son of renowned painter Malaquías Montoya, brother of poet Andrés Montoya, and nephew of the late legendary poet José Montoya.

Born in Mexico, Arely Morales moved to Texas at the age of fourteen. The experience of merging into a new culture, as well as being part of a minority group that is targeted and profiled, influenced her work on immigrant workers.

Elsa Muñoz is a Mexican American realist painter from the south side of Chicago. She was born in a neighborhood called La Villita (Little Village), a community composed of predominantly working-class Mexican immigrants.

Sierra Sierra was a Mexican feminist artist disciple of Swiss-born figurative artist Roger von Gunten in the early 1960s. After studying art history in Italy and France, and then philosophy and pre-Hispanic art, she graduated in 1976 from La Esmeralda in Mexico City.
